To make soaps at home, you will need protective equipment: rubber gloves, a coat with long sleeves, a protective mask for the nose and mouth, and goggles.
The container in which you will dissolve the NaOH should be made of stronger plastic, not glass. The spoon with which you will mix caustic soda and water should also be plastic.
From utensils, you will need:
– A container in which you will melt and heat the oils on the stove
– A densely woven strainer, preferably plastic
– Stick blender
– A plastic container in which you will stir the soap
– Silicone molds for soaps (as a last resort, you can use an old silicone mold that you once used for cakes)
– The already mentioned plastic container and plastic spoon for dissolving caustic soda
– Another container in which you will measure the caustic soda
– Scale
– Foil
– A blanket
Raw materials you will need for making soap:
– 150g of coconut oil
– 150g of palm oil
– 200g of olive oil
– 190g of distilled water
– 71.9g of caustic soda
– A few drops of food coloring (if you want)
– 10-16g of essential or fragrant oil
The recipe for soaps that I present to you is in perfect harmony. With this composition of oil, water and caustic soda, you will get an excellent soap that will have ideal properties for removing filth, for body care and a sufficient amount of foam. If you add more of one oil and less of another, you will lose the quality of the soap. So, with the increase and decrease of a certain oil, some of the factors (care, foam, cleaning) will increase or decrease.
You can also use some other oils to make soaps, and change the recipe, but in that case you will get different properties of the soap, and in your beginner’s knowledge and experimentation, you will make a combination of oils, where the final product, the soap, will not foam or will not remove filth, so you will be disappointed at the very beginning. If, for example, you use 200g of olive oil, 200g of sunflower oil and 100g of coconut oil, you will get a soap with superior care, but that soap will not remove filth enough and will hardly foam at all. That is why I advise you, if you are a beginner, to stick to the recommended recipes, in order to get the perfect soap.
If you want to use some other oils for making soaps, maybe even use lard in some part, here is another combination of oils that will give excellent properties to the soap:
– 150g of sunflower oil
– 150g of coconut oil
– 200g of lard
– 190g of distilled water
– 72.44 caustic soda
– 16 g of essential or fragrant oil
Before starting to make soaps, prepare the molds. Spread the blanket on a solid surface, put a solid tray, preferably a plastic one, in the middle of the blanket and put the mold in the tray. Once you’ve poured the soaps into the mold, cover the soap molds with foil or plastic wrap, then tuck the ends of the blanket over the top, tucking your soaps in.
Let’s start making soaps now. Let’s not forget for a moment about precautions when working with caustic soda.
Step 1: Measure distilled water in a plastic container in which you will make a solution of soda and water, then in another container measure caustic soda (be sure to wear a mask, the soda is in crystalline form, but there are small crystals, almost like dust, be careful not to inhale those fine, tiny crystals, so that they don’t get into your lungs). Let’s pour the soda into the water, NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Stir with a plastic spoon and leave to cool for an hour or two.
When soda is poured into water, a high temperature develops, a lot of evaporation occurs, and it will not be pleasant for you to inhale that vapor. This stage is best done outside, on the balcony and in an open space, where you will let it cool down. Take needed precautions so that no domestic animal comes in contact with the container and the solution. Also take into account the weather conditions, in case you have left the solution outside, so that the wind does not knock over your container or the rain does not fall into your solution.
Stir with a plastic spoon, right away at the beginning it is necessary to stir a bit around the bowl, because if you don’t do it right away, the crystals will fall to the bottom, they will crystallize and you won’t be able to dissolve them.
Step 2: While the soda solution is cooling, measure the oils from the recipe and let them melt, then pour them into a plastic container in which you will mix the soap, and leave the oil to cool.
The soda solution cools slowly, but it also depends on the outside temperature. Cover the plastic container containing the solution with the outside of your hands, to see if the temperature has dropped somewhere close to body temperature (it would be great if you had a cooking thermometer to measure the temperature).
At this stage, it is most important to bring the solution of soda and melted oils to approximately the same temperature, about 30 degrees.
Step 3: Following all precautions, slowly pour the soda solution into the oil, insert the stick blender into the bowl, all the way to the bottom of the bowl, do not turn it on, but only use it to mix in a circular motion, for about half a minute. Always keep the mixer at the bottom of the bowl, do not lift it. Then turn on the mixer for about ten seconds, then turn it off and just mix for about half a minute. Repeat this process, increasing the mixing time, until you get a “trail”, that is, when you turn the blender off and lift it up, if the mixture that drips and leaks from it does not sink, but remains on the surface and makes a trail, then you can add the prepared fragrances and it is the last moment to add color (if you wish to do so). Mix again and pour into molds. At this stage, it is important that the soap mixture starts to thicken, like when you cook pudding, but also that it remains thin enough to pour.
Step 4: Pour your soap mixture into the prepared molds, cover with plastic wrap and cover with a blanket.
Step 5: You can remove the mask and goggles, but keep the protective gloves and long-sleeved clothing on until you have washed all the dishes and utensils that came into contact with the soda solution.
Step 6: The next day, preferably after 24 hours, take your soaps out of the mold, arrange them, ideally on a wooden board, perhaps on a shelf from an old wardrobe or simply on a towel (it is important that the surface on which the soaps will dry is porous, that it can absorb excess moisture). Every day, during the next month, flip your soaps, so that they dry and mature as well as possible.
Depending on the size of the mold, you will get about 7, 8 soaps and you will be impatient until that month is over, to try your first hand made soap. You can use the soaps already after two days, when you take them out of the mold – they are completely safe, but they are also too moist and will quickly wear out – dissolve, if you don’t wait for the maturing time to pass.
Enjoy your hand-made soaps, with excellent properties and composition that you have chosen, without harmful ingredients, and check out how the Lavina Cosmetics soaps obtained by the same process, but with different recipes, look like, depending on the planned purpose.
Up next… Fragrances and colors for soaps